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Amazon's Magic Solution to Worldwide Internet Connectivity Is the Same as Everyone Else's https://ift.tt/2uKK9Lo When corporations become monolithic, they tend to stalk familiar, doomed territory. The planned communities of the world’s Disneys and Fords are largely out of vogue now, but for tech giants, the white whale is always skywards, in the form of a grandiose universal internet initiative. It’s only surprising that Amazon, in all its splendor, hasn’t gotten in on the action sooner. Project Kuiper—named after a belt of small objects encircling the Solar System—is an ambitious plan to hoist satellites, around 3,2000 of them, into low Earth orbit at a variety of altitudes in order to supply internet connections to an estimated 95 percent of the planet. It was first spotted by Geekwire earlier today, and Amazon later confirmed the project’s existence. There’s nothing resembling a deadline on Kuiper, beyond the company referring to it as a “long-term project.” Spacex has already received regulatory approval for around 12,000 satellites intended for its similarly minded Starlink project (none are currently in orbit); two years ago, OneWeb was given the FCC’s OK for 720 satellites, of which six have been launched; last summer Facebook confirmed the existence of Project Athena, its own design several years in the making to fire internet-giving satellites into orbit in early 2019—which you might notice is now. Google’s Project Loon—the audacious plan to provide LTE internet to remote regions via a network of hot air balloons—has resulted in numerous crashes and a serious patent infringement suit. Its claims to launch in Kenya by 2019 appear to have been grossly inflated. Will we have Space Internet some day? Probably. And in all likeliness it’ll be slow, buggy, and—like Facebook’s ill-fated stranglehold on internet availability in the Philippines—further entrench the monopolies of the companies that provide it, and create a whole host of new negative externalities no one is prepared to deal with. The innate excitement of space exploration is being used to guild an obvious power grab by companies built on unrealistic expansion to into markets for their own far-from-altruistic ends. If you want to be excited about infrastructure, go tell your city council to build more fucking trains. Digital Trends via Gizmodo https://gizmodo.com April 4, 2019 at 11:42AM
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Aperture’s Peter Kraus takes aim at passive ETFs and the “illusion of free” with new start-up https://ift.tt/2VokzaL “We’re breaking beta from alpha. That doesn’t exist anywhere. We’re literally saying, ‘Only pay us for alpha and define beta. Nobody has done that.” That’s an energized quote from legendary Wall Streeter Peter Kraus. For those not familiar with the lingo, I’ll translate: Kraus’s new company Aperture, which has just launched a new mutual fund offering (yes, you read that right: a new financial start-up is launching mutual funds in 2019), is seeking to create a true blue pay-for-performance model that emphasizes beating a market benchmark, not just tying it to an index as most passive funds do. Why not offer a slick ETF, give it a cool name and make it “smart” so as to add some spice? If you have to ask that, then you don’t know Kraus. In breaking bread with him last year at a dinner held by Marstone (where he is chairman), I was given a first-hand education as to why ETFs — which have assumed their place in the millennial hall-of-fame alongside toast points, craft beer and Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj — are not always the right answer for investors. Who is Kraus to say that? Well, Kraus worked at Goldman Sachs for 22 years (several of which were before Goldman’s 1999 IPO), ultimately co-heading the firm’s investment management division and chairing its strategy committee. He has also served as chairman and CEO of AllianceBernstein, and while he’s had his triumphs and challenges, one thing is beyond dispute: Kraus doesn’t need the money. As such, his consistent banging of the drum about the structural considerations of ETFs isn’t a case of a heavy-hitter talking their own book for economic gain. With Aperture, Kraus is looking to re-energize mutual funds and passionately push back against the idea that investors can’t beat the market. If you can pick talented managers, incentive them properly and target the right area, alpha, says Kraus, is still there for the taking. Here’s my recent conversation with Kraus in Aperture’s New York office: Gregg Schoenberg: What was the overarching thesis that led you to start Aperture? Peter Kraus: I took a step back and looked at the financial ecosystem that’s been created over 50 years and the changes in that ecosystem. Then I asked myself the question of whether that system makes sense for the next 50 years, or if there was something that we’re missing. Digital Trends via TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com April 4, 2019 at 11:39AM
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Daily Crunch: Apple cuts HomePod prices https://ift.tt/2WNFmEX The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here. 1. Apple’s HomePod gets a $50 price cut Announced in mid-2017 and released in early 2018, the Siri-powered product brought a very Apple approach to the category dominated by Amazon and Google, with premium sound and design at a premium price of $349. The $50 price drop puts the product under $300 — though it’s still pretty steep, so far as the category goes. Apple has confirmed with TechCrunch that this is a permanent price cut. 2. Researchers find 540M Facebook user records on exposed servers According to the researchers’ write-up, Mexico-based digital media company Cultura Colectiva left more than 540 million records — including comments, likes, reactions, account names and more — stored on the Amazon S3 storage server without a password, allowing anyone to access the data. 3. Yahoo spin-out Altaba is selling its entire Alibaba stake and closing down Bye-bye, Altaba. The Yahoo spin-out created to house Yahoo’s lucrative stake in Alibaba and Yahoo Japan announced today that it will sell its shares and shut up shop. 4. Amazon Alexa launches its first HIPAA-compliant medical skills Following a trial of Amazon’s smart speakers in patients’ rooms at Cedars-Sinai, the company announced an invite-only program allowing select developers to create and launch HIPAA-compliant healthcare skills for Alexa. 5. GrubMarket raises $25M more for its farm-to-table food delivery service GrubMarket works with smaller farms and other suppliers to sell and deliver their items by way of its online store both to consumers and to businesses — including restaurants, stores and food startups. 6. MIT cuts working relationship with Huawei and ZTE over alleged sanction violations The Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced it will suspend collaborations, including research projects and funding, with Huawei Technologies and ZTE, two Chinese tech companies fighting with the U.S. government over alleged sanction violations. 7. SiriusXM and Pandora launch Pandora NOW, the first Pandora station that streams on both services On Pandora, the new experience will appear as an interactive station and playlist, while SiriusXM subscribers will be able to access Pandora NOW on Channel 3. This is the first time a music experience has launched on both platforms. Digital Trends via TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com April 4, 2019 at 11:39AM
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The Library's Door Was Just Blown Wide Open on a Shocking Episode of The Magicians https://ift.tt/2FTxJGr Look, having someone’s secret plans revealed via slideshow isn’t the most-thrilling villain exposé known to man, god, or librarian. But that’s what we have Matt Frewer (aka Max Headroom, aka Dr. Aldous Leekie) for. He could sell us anything—even a millennia-old conspiracy only suited for something like The Magicians. On a slideshow. The main conflict of season four has involved the monster inside Eliot—a mysterious being who’s been attacking gods and stealing large stones from inside their bodies. Now, the latest episode “4-1-1” has finally brought the truth—thanks to Frewer, who’s playing a former Librarian called the Binder. And the truth is a lot bigger, and badder, than we ever could have thought. Using a shadow puppet performance that, let’s face it, is just an old-school version of Powerpoint, the Binder reveals the purpose of the stones and why they were inside the gods’ bellies in the first place. We thought the gods were safeguarding the stones from the monster, who now plans to use them (and Julia’s indestructible body) to rebuild his far more dangerous sister. But that’s not the whole story. The stones didn’t just live inside the gods—they made the gods. The Binder describes how, long ago, he’d discovered how to take a god’s powers and bind them into objects so librarians could harness their power. The only way they could do it without killing a god, thereby triggering a shutdown of magic like we got at the end of season two, was by taking a set of twin gods and fucking with their lives. The female twin would be split into four pieces and bound to stones, a process that would reduce the male twin to a childlike state as he’d be without his other half. He would then be banished so he couldn’t interfere with their plans. Hmm, a childlike creature who was doomed to live alone. Sound familiar? Four librarians—Bacchus, Angus, Iris, and Heka—agreed this was totally a cool thing to do and sacrificed the monster’s twin sister, a scene we witnessed in a previous episode (as seen above). They took the stones inside themselves and were turned into gods, banishing the Binder into a book after he had second thoughts about what he’d done. So, there you have it. Bacchus and the others—including Iris, the one who was guiding Julia into her own godhood—weren’t gods after all. They were librarians, masquerading as deities. It’s a fascinating twist that opens a lot of doors for the series. It’s another way of showing how screwed-up the whole notion of godhood is on this series, as several of the gods we’ve gone to for “advice” were people who’d not only cheated to get on the guest list, but were mortals who had since lived so long they stopped caring about humanity (something Julia is now very concerned about). Yes, I know some deity origin stories are about mortals or half-mortals who’d ascended for various reasons, but it doesn’t often show the side effects this, well, bleakly. It also shows the lengths that people will go to in order to gain power. And now that we’ve learned how Everett has been siphoning magic to turn himself into a god, it raises the stakes even higher. Thank you Matt Frewer, and your godlike slideshow. Random Musings:
For more, make sure you’re following us on our new Instagram @io9dotcom. Digital Trends via Gizmodo https://gizmodo.com April 4, 2019 at 11:24AM
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WhatsApp’s Business app comes to the iPhone https://ift.tt/2WIiy9K Over a year after WhatsApp officially introduced its app for business customers to its first markets, the previously Android-only WhatsApp Business app is today launching on the iPhone. According to the Facebook-owned company, WhatsApp Business has been adopted by millions of businesses worldwide since its debut, but one of its customers’ most frequent requests was to offer the app on the iPhone. The iOS version, like its Android counterpart, is designed to help small business owners reach their customers on smartphones. That means it includes the ability for businesses to create profiles that include their description, email, address and website, as well as messaging tools for customer communication like automated greetings, quick replies and away messages. Businesses can also use WhatsApp Business from their desktop computer, which in January rolled out tools to organize and filter chats as well as quick replies. At the time, WhatsApp said it had 5 million business customers. The iOS app was spotted in testing last month on the Mexican iOS App Store, but today marks its official launch. A WhatsApp Business platform is key to WhatsApp’s growth in emerging markets where first-time internet users have skipped over using computers to reach the web, and instead mainly get online through their mobile devices. Here, WhatsApp serves as a portal to the web – even more so than its parent company Facebook does – for many users. Through the main WhatsApp app, users can connect with friends and family, join groups focused on their various interests, and even get the news (or, unfortunately, fake news and hoaxes – something that WhatsApp is now trying to clamp down on.) Being able to easily communicate with businesses was an obvious next step for the company not only in terms of serving these customers, but also for revenue generation. The company makes money by charging customers who have large volumes of incoming messages. The WhatsApp Business app for iOS is available today from the App Store in Brazil, Germany, Indonesia, India, Mexico, the U.K. and the U.S. The company says it will roll out to more markets worldwide in the weeks ahead.
Digital Trends via TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com April 4, 2019 at 11:16AM New Australian Law Threatens Prison for Tech Execs Who Allow Violent Content on Their Platforms4/4/2019
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New Australian Law Threatens Prison for Tech Execs Who Allow Violent Content on Their Platforms https://ift.tt/2K64vJS In the wake of the terrorist attack in Christchurch, New Zealand last month, Australia is putting major pressure on Big Tech to prevent the spread of hateful and violent content on their platforms, with a new law that threatens major fines and imprisonment. The law positions Australia at the extreme end of a growing push to police the digital gatekeepers. On Thursday, Australia’s parliament passed legislation that carries penalties of up to 10 percent of annual global net sales over the 12 months preceding an offense for the companies, and imprisonment of up to three years for company executives. It is unclear from the legislation which executives would be subjected to the law. The new Sharing of Abhorrent Violent Material bill requires hosting services and content service providers to notify law enforcement and “expeditiously” remove content that depicts “abhorrent violent conduct,” which the bill defines as terrorist acts, murder, attempted murder, torture, rape, and kidnapping. The law does not limit its scope to the executives of major corporations like Google or Facebook. Instead, those who run any site or service that fails to remove “abhorrent violent material” from their servers are also subject to potential fines or imprisonment under the law. The bill was drafted in response to the horrific shooting at two mosques in Christchurch, during which the shooter livestreamed his attack and white supremacist messages on Facebook. After the original livestream was removed, the video rapidly proliferated across the platform as Facebook moderators scrambled to remove hundreds of thousands of re-uploads. The company says it automatically blocked 1.2 million versions while another 300,000 made it past their filters. Videos were also shared on Twitter, Reddit, and YouTube, all of which likewise struggled to contain it. Australia’s attorney general, Christian Porter, told reporters on Thursday that Twitter and Facebook “should not be playing footage of murder,” according to The Guardian. “There are platforms such as YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook who do not seem to take their responsibility to not show the most abhorrently violent material seriously,” Porter told reporters. The Guardian reports that Porter explained a jury would have to decide what constitutes an “expeditious” timeframe for removal of offending content, meaning it is not specifically defined by the law. Porter added, “every Australian would agree it was totally unreasonable that it [the Christchurch video] should exist on their [Facebook’s] site for well over an hour without them taking any action whatsoever.” Digital Industry Group Inc (DIGI), an Australian group that represents Twitter, Google, Facebook, and Amazon, among other tech companies, denounced the new law. “This law, which was conceived and passed in five days without any meaningful consultation, does nothing to address hate speech, which was the fundamental motivation for the tragic Christchurch terrorist attacks,” DIGI managing director Sunita Bose said, in a statement. Bose said that DIGI members try to remove abhorrent content as fast as possible. “But with the vast volumes of content uploaded to the internet every second, this is a highly complex problem that requires discussion with the technology industry, legal experts, the media and civil society to get the solution right,” Bose said. “We have zero tolerance for terrorist content on our platforms,” a Google spokesperson told Gizmodo. “We are committed to leading the way in developing new technologies and standards for identifying and removing terrorist content.” Facebook and Twitter directed Gizmodo to the statement from DIGI. In an interview on Good Morning America that aired shortly after the bill was passed, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg rejected calls made after the Christchurch attack to add a delay to livestreams, because it would “fundamentally break what livestreaming is for people.” Digital Trends via Gizmodo https://gizmodo.com April 4, 2019 at 11:12AM This Hub Makes a USB-C Port a Lot More Useful and It's Down the Best Price Ever [Exclusive]4/4/2019
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This Hub Makes a USB-C Port a Lot More Useful, and It's Down the Best Price Ever [Exclusive] https://ift.tt/2I7KYGe
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USB-C has been great in a lot of ways, but it’s going to be a long time until all of our accessories use the new connector. So if you have a laptop, tablet, or even phone whose only physical connection to the outside world is a USB-C port, you’re going to need a dongle. Luckily, this space-saving option from Anker includes three USB 3.0 ports, an HDMI port, and even an ethernet port, and you can add it to your bag for just $36 today, down from the usual $55. You’ll need to clip the 10% coupon on the product page, then enter code KINJACBA at checkout. Just don’t plug in any flash drives if you don’t know where they’ve been.
Digital Trends via Gizmodo https://gizmodo.com April 4, 2019 at 11:12AM
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Pi Charging rebrands as Spansive, opens up to partners but drops plans for its own padless wireless charger https://ift.tt/2VpMCGY Pi Charging is changing course and changing names. It’ll now be known as “Spansive”. As Pi, the company had been working on a cone-shaped wireless charger that would sit on a desk and allow the user to charge devices placed within about 12 inches in any direction. It would require a case to work with existing devices, with the trade-off of not requiring the user to place their device directly on top of a charging pad. They showed this device at TechCrunch Disrupt SF in 2017, where the company won the Startup Battlefield competition. After extensive user testing, co-founder John MacDonald says they heard two common complaints from testers. First, the cone charger, when surrounded by charging devices, took up too much space on tables and counters. Second, no one wanted to use a dedicated charging case in place of the brand name cases they already had. As built-in wireless protocols like Qi grew more and more commonplace, the company came to realize its current approach wouldn’t work. “Qi is just not designed, even philosophically if you talk to people at the Qi standard, it’s not focused on one foot, two feet of range.” says MacDonald. “It’s really focused on surfaces and areas rather than volumes.” MacDonald tells me that while they had let potential buyers sign up for an email list to claim a cone device later, the company never accepted money for pre-orders. According to Crunchbase, the company has raised over $14M from investors; MacDonald says those investors will maintain their stakes in Spansive, with the rebrand changing nothing about its cap table. As a focus of its rebranding, the company will also be opening up to outside partners who might want to integrate the volumetric tech from Pi’s cone charger into their own products, with wireless headphone makers mentioned as a potential example. MacDonald says the company has seen considerable interest from potential partners, so it’ll be a key part of the brand moving forward. Though Pi — or, I should say now, Spansive — is dropping plans for its own cone charger, it’s not dropping out of the consumer wireless charging space. It’s working on a product that MacDonald says the company will announce this summer, focusing on charging multiple devices simultaneously without the need for a case, and on compatibility with Qi devices. Spansive also sent over this teaser-y render, which appears to show an iPhone (or a device with a similar antenna band) resting on top of a charging base:
While it’s disappointing to see the cone charger get shelved, wireless charging is clearly a very tough space. Just last week, Apple canceled plans for its AirPower wireless charger over a year after it was announced, saying the device ultimately wasn’t meeting the company’s standards. Digital Trends via TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com April 4, 2019 at 11:10AM
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Reserve your demo table at TC Sessions: Mobility 2019 https://ift.tt/2WEvCwW Viva la revolution! And by that we mean the tech revolution taking place in mobility and transportation. If you’re an early-stage startup founder in either field, don’t miss your chance to demo your company in front of top influencers at TC Sessions: Mobility 2019. It’s a prime opportunity to showcase your tech startup in front of a very large, very targeted audience — the mobility and transportation industry’s movers and shakers. Why wait? Book a demo table right now. TC Sessions: Mobility 2019 takes place on July 10 in San Jose, Calif. More than 1,000 members of the mobility community — founders, technologists, engineering students and investors — will gather for a day-long intensive event featuring speakers, panel discussions, demos, workshops and world-class networking. TechCrunch editors will interview some of the best minds and makers in this rapidly evolving field. They’ll challenge assumptions and deflate the hype to provide a clearer understanding of the current state of mobility — and what the future holds. Exciting as it may be, mobility raises complex issues and challenges — from human impact and infrastructure to regulatory concerns and capital investment. We won’t shy away from the big issues — we’ll dig in and hear from the people who are making it happen. Case in point, we recently announced our first speaker — Dave Ferguson, the CEO of the autonomous delivery startup Nuro. An early pioneer of self-driving vehicle technology, Ferguson has worked on robotics and machine learning for nearly 20 years, owns more than 100 patents and served as the machine learning and computer vision team lead on Google’s self-driving program (now known as Waymo). The auto industry alone is undergoing a seismic shift toward investing in car sharing, ride hailing, on-demand shuttles and even subscription services. Traditional paradigms around producing, selling and buying cars are changing and — along with a serious uptick in electric vehicle ownership — creating huge opportunities for tech startups. Things start to get exponential when you add breakthroughs in AI, robotics, drone technology and autonomous delivery bots. What started as the horseless carriage may soon be a flying taxi. TC Sessions Mobility 2019 is the place to explore the intricacies of these topics and connect with the best minds in your community. We’re still building our agenda and adding to our roster of speakers, many of whom will demonstrate their technology on our stage. Here’s a radical thought. If you want to be considered for a spot — or nominate someone else — submit your application right here. We’ll announce the participants of our fireside chats, panels and workshops in the coming weeks. TC Sessions: Mobility 2019 takes place on July 10, and this is your chance to showcase your early-stage mobility startup in front of mobility’s best and brightest founders, investors and technologists. Reserve your demo table today. Looking for sponsorship opportunities? Contact our TechCrunch team to learn about the benefits associated with sponsoring TC Sessions: Mobility 2019. Digital Trends via TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com April 4, 2019 at 11:10AM |
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